


Flourishing Stars

by Voido



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftercare, Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Like, Lots of both, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Mind Control, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Minor Allura/Lotor (Voltron), Permanent Injuries, Pining, Post-Season/Series 05, SLOW slowburn, Semi-graphic violence, Torture, Whump, also lotor gets the slow redemption he deserves, even more eventual getting together, eventual mutual pining, its there but its not the focus, not for raisin, slowburn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-11
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-10-08 11:23:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17385572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Voido/pseuds/Voido
Summary: Finally, after what felt like hours of silence, Hunk took a step forward, his armored feet drumming against the metal tiles, an unpleasant, almost gloomy sound. It felt like foreshadowing.“It’s...hard to explain, Keith, but...Lance isn’t here.”Lance isn’t here.- - -When Keith returns to the Castle of Lions, he's greeted by the emptiness of someone missing. Someone loud, obnoxious and annoying. Someone deeply cherished and needed. With Lance gone, Lotor revealed as a traitor, and Shiro acting weirdly, Voltron threatens to fall apart right in front of him.When Lance awakes after saving Allura's life, he's in a foreign place, unable to move, unsure of what happened last. With every passing day, he feels his sanity drain, until all he finds himself wishing for is a way to end it all.





	1. Leere

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!  
> This story was originally intended to happen for a Big Bang event, but somehow, the whole thing got _entirely_ out of hand, so I decided to make it a standalone, big project! I'm not yet sure just how far it'll grow, but either way I hope you'll enjoy the ride!

There was an uncomfortable foreignness in the familiarity of the castle of lions when Keith first set foot onto it after more than two years. In a way, it felt like coming home after a long journey full of hardships, and at the same time, he couldn’t shake off the thought that he was entering a literal lion’s den, armed with nothing but a poorly-lit torch. There were multiple pairs of eyes staring at both him and the people he’d brought along.

He could see that everyone had something they wanted, needed to say, but he didn’t have time for this.

“We need to stop Lotor, and I don’t have time to explain,” he began as calmly as he could, although just thinking of the poor altean girl he’d brought along made him so angry that he felt his hands clench to fists. They’d been lied to and tricked all this time, and they couldn’t afford waiting any longer before disarming their enemy.

“We can’t right now. He’s just entered the quintessence-field with Allura.”

Pidge’s voice was dull, eyes never torn from her laptop that she was carrying around for whatever reason. Surprisingly, she didn’t ask anything, didn’t even really sound like she cared. Something about her, and the whole rest of the group, was terribly  _ off _ .

“Then we need to be prepared for when they return. Make sure to be ready to form Vol—”

He blinked, sure of what he was seeing, but unsure of how to deal with it. The paladins were all dressed in their respective armors—green, yellow, black. Keith knew that there couldn’t anyone wearing pink, because Allura wasn’t around, and red was his own color, of course, but still, there was something—

“Where the hell’s Lance?” he asked, unable to hide his annoyance. This wasn’t the time to be goofing around somewhere on the ship and neglect the mission. Even if it weren’t for Lotor having lied to them all, times were tense and the team should stick together in situations like this one.

The reaction wasn’t anything close to what Keith had been expecting. Normally, Pidge would roll her eyes and Hunk would make a well-meant comment on how Lance was a little difficult to handle sometimes. Shiro would insist on Keith being a bit more patient. Coran would say something about making a call for his  _ favorite paladin _ right away.

None of that happened. In fact, nothing at all seemed to happen. They all kept staring at different, seemingly very interesting spots on the hangar’s walls, doing their best not to meet Keith’s gaze in any kind of way. A horrible, painful idea started to form in his mind, but he shut it down before it could manifest—there was  _ no way… _

“Didn’t I say I don’t have time for this?”

This time, his words were louder, full of force and a pitch of anger he was unable to hide. Maybe it was naive that he had expected Voltron to be fine in the time he was gone, but seeing it in the state it was currently in was, in a way, terrifying. It was as if the whole group had fallen apart, with neither Allura nor Lance here.

Finally, after what felt like hours of silence, Hunk took a step forward, his armored feet drumming against the metal tiles, an unpleasant, almost gloomy sound. It felt like foreshadowing.

“It’s...hard to explain, Keith, but...Lance isn’t here.”

_ Lance isn’t here. _

Spending so much time in the quantum abyss with his mother had, obviously, meant that Keith had been unable to keep in contact with his former teammates—he’d accepted this necessity for the sake of possibly saving the universe, and by no means did he want to allow himself to  _ regret _ that decision. After all, he’d found his mother in the midst of nowhere, something he had never truly believed would really happen. The painful expressions he was facing, though, the realization that  _ not here _ definitely meant something bad, that Lance wasn’t off to a semi-safe mission somewhere...

All of it piled up set Keith on fire, and he had to bite his lip so he wouldn’t scream. If Lance wasn’t here—whatever those words truly meant—then why was Allura busy with Lotor, instead of the team trying to locate their missing member? What did  _ not here _ mean, when had all of this happened?

“I want you to fill me in on what happened, before Allura and Lotor return.” There was no room left for argumentation in those words. “Regroup on the bridge.”

Before anyone could get out a word, Keith had already taken a step closer to his wolf, nodded as a short affirmation and a second later, they both disappeared.

— — —  


The emptiness of the bridge was comforting, even if Keith knew it wouldn’t last long. Everything seemed to be the same as he remembered it, on first glance, yet there was no doubt about the crucial part that was missing. It was quiet—a state Keith would normally know to appreciate. Right now, though, the lack of noise was like torture. How often would he have given everything for Lance to shut up for at least a minute.

How desperately would he give everything now to hear him speak.

Taking a deep breath that entirely failed to calm him down, Keith sunk to the floor and crossed his legs. The wolf stayed close to him and curled up next to his feet as well, resting his head in Keith’s lap.

Footsteps and muffled voices indicated that the rest of the team was finally catching up to them, but Keith didn’t even look up from watching his own hand slowly petting the wolf’s fur. It helped him relax a tiny bit, although the anger rising inside him got harder to control the louder the voices became.

The doors opened, and everyone fell silent, but they all closed in on him. A hand lay on his shoulder, and if it weren’t his mother’s, he’d probably shake it off—this way, though, he leaned into the touch, still adamant on not making a sound until he’d gotten a proper explanation. Maybe he was reading this all wrong after all.

_ Don’t be stupid _ , he scolded himself immediately.  _ When has anything ever been that easy? _

Hunk and Pidge took their respective seats, Coran went to inspect the quintessence field, and Shiro came to a halt close enough to Keith for them to look at each other, but far enough away to give him some privacy. Before anyone could even try to begin with an explanation, Coran announced:

“The princess should be back, soon.”

It was matter-of-factly—just to let them know that they would have to make their talk quick; Keith wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. Yes, he wanted to be filled in on the matters  _ right now _ , but he also wanted to know exactly  _ what _ had happened and especially  _ why. _

“I don’t care who does it,” he said as monotonously as he could manage. “But someone had better start speaking  _ real _ soon.”

Silence. He didn’t bother counting the ticks, because he was sure it would only make him even angrier—if that was possible. Although he’d gotten rid of most of his past self’s bad habits, he found himself scratching his thumb’s fingertip aggressively, eyes steadily focused on the action.

Eventually, Pidge sighed loudly and spoke up, eyes never lifted from her screen.

“We were on a mission to maintain a shield station that the empire was trying to destroy, with the help of the Blade of Marmora. Something went wrong—Shiro’s arm reacted badly to the device we were using, and in the process, there was some sort of...there was an explosion. It was going to hit the blue lion, but Lance…”

With uncharacteristic force to the motion, she put her laptop down as if it meant nothing to her, jumped up and caused Keith to freeze and stare at her. In the corner of his eye, he could see that the rest of the team did the same.

“Lance...that damn idiot. Stupid hero-complex-driven dumbass…”

She was  _ crying _ , and seemingly unable to put it into words, so instead, Hunk went on.

“He...knocked the red lion into the blue one and saved Allura, but…”

Keith felt his fingers shaking, lips trembling, squinting hard to keep himself from tearing up, uncertain if with sadness or anger. His mind was already coming to an answer that he did not want to accept.

_ He’s not dead _ , he tried to repeat to himself over and over.  _ He can’t be. He can’t be. _

“Spill it.”

Hunk groaned and ran a hand over his face, muffling the rest of his already barely audible reply.

“Ever since then, he’s just...gone.”

And with that, there was silence, not a sound to be heard apart from their steady breaths. It made the fact that one of them was missing all the more obvious, and it still wasn’t as detailed a reply as Keith wanted to demand, but before he could even take a deep breath to speak, Coran interrupted him.

“They’re on their way back from the quintessence field!”

Only then did Keith realize that he hadn’t introduced anyone to each other, let alone explained  _ why _ they needed to stop Lotor immediately. He cast a look over to Romelle, who had stepped away from the group a little and seemed almost tiny, the weight of her feelings wearing her down. Keith could only imagine what the prospect of having to see Lotor again put her through.

“I explained briefly on the way,” she said, seemingly having caught onto what he’d been wanting to ask. “But I figured it would make more sense to keep the details for when the princess returns.”

He nodded and quickly got up, made sure that both his mother and Romelle were out of sight to grant them the moment of surprise, and wordlessly signatured for the wolf to stay alert.

The wait seemed endless, and even more so because Keith couldn’t force his thoughts to stay on the matter. He had learned that the mission was more important than the individual—although he had yet to actually  _ apply _ this knowledge whenever needed—but he hadn’t learned to deal with such unexpected surprises. Dying during an infiltration wouldn’t shock him, facing an enemy invasion wouldn’t either, but coming back home and finding one of their team members missing…

Somehow, he had never considered that as any kind of possibility, and that was what made it unbearable. He knew he was frowning, his heart was racing and he grew a massive headache with every additional second they waited.

When he came face-to-face with both Allura and the traitor Lotor, Keith almost leashed out on instinct, desperate to tear the smiles out of their faces with his own bare hands. How dare they feel any kind of happiness in this kind of situation?

The slim smile on Allura’s face, at least, quickly faltered when she saw Keith, waiting for her return in what he knew was a defensive and hostile posture, already raising his blade to transform it. He hadn’t wanted to play the severity of the reason for his abrupt return down either way, and now, fueled with anger and remorse over things he couldn’t have foreseen, those feelings had only increased tenfold. Before she could say a word, he shifted his eyes from her to Lotor, pleasant and disgustingly friendly expression seemingly glued to his face. Keith wanted to punch it out of him, both for all the Alteans that Lotor had tortured, but also for how self-righteously he was standing there, as if anything in the universe were alright.

“What’s going on?” Allura demanded, keeping her eyes on Keith and the weapon he was holding in her and Lotor’s direction.

“Why don’t you ask Romelle?” Keith suggested, nodding over to the girl, who was glaring daggers at Lotor, but keeping a safe distance, knowing that it was best to keep combat to the others. That, however, didn’t stop her from speaking up about why she was here.

“Lotor has been lying to all of you. He saved many Alteans, decaphoebs after Altea was destroyed, and created a colony where we lived in peace...but then…”

She clenched her fists and shook her head, but it didn’t seem to help her calm down in the slightest. Just looking at Lotor, who already looked way more defensive now, seemed to cause her immense pain.

“He created a second colony. Allegedly. Except after my brother was invited to join it, he managed to flee and reached me just in time to explain—Lotor has been harvesting the Alteans’ quintessence for countless  _ years _ !”

Allura turned from Romelle to Lotor, trying to understand what was happening, but it was—obviously—all way too much.

“Is this true?” she demanded, her voice cold but wavering, taking a few steps back from the man they had all foolishly trusted. He looked troubled, but it had to be a farce; after all he’d done, how could he possibly plead innocence, or try to come up with an explanation?

“What I did was a necessity. It is true that...some of the Alteans I had rescued gave their lives for the cause, but it was to assure the lives of  _ millions _ in the future.” He closed the distance, reaching out for her hand slowly, and it looked like she wasn’t sure how to react. “Please, Allura, let this not get in the way of all that we have already achieved—”

She made her decision, eyebrows furrowed, grabbed his arm and threw him over her shoulder with so much force that it knocked him unconscious, causing everyone to stare at her with wide eyes. Sometimes, they all tended to forget how powerful she really was.

“I can’t believe I fell for his tricks…”

But they all had, and Keith believed that they didn’t have time to blame anyone for it—it had happened, they needed to deal with the consequences, but at least they had found out the truth before it was too late.

— — —

With Lotor knocked out and back in the prison he’d been held captive in before, the rest of the paladins finally had the time for a quick briefing. The tension between them was so thick that Keith would’ve sworn that it could be measured by one or the other of Pidge’s extraordinary inventions.

He’d decided to hold himself back on the matters of Lance to give Romelle the time to fully explain her situation. Both her and Allura were sitting in one corner of the lounge, mostly to themselves, with only Coran relatively close nearby, to make sure they were alright. Keith had positioned himself as far away from them as possible, his mother sitting next to him with a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him. He hadn’t said a single thing to the team ever since the confrontation with Lotor, and he knew that the second he did, he wouldn’t be able to compose himself, so he kept his mouth shut tight.

When the pressure on his shoulder left, though, he looked up to see Shiro approaching them, an equally comforting and pitiful expression on his face—Keith remembered it from the time before the Garrison; whenever he’d messed up, Shiro had given him the same look, right before assuring him that things were going to be alright.

Keith had never believed it. He wouldn’t do it now, either.

But his mother got up and closed the distance between herself and Shiro to hold out her hand.

“I believe we never had the chance. I have to thank you for raising my son.”

Honestly, Keith couldn’t deny that one, allowing himself to indulge in those words for a moment, wondering where he would be now, if not for Shiro never losing faith in him.

Shiro dismissed the compliment, but still shook Krolia’s hands firmly while they introduced themselves to each other. It didn’t make the situation any easier, but seeing at least a few people close to himself get to know each other in a relatively peaceful situation helped Keith calm down the tiniest bit. Still, there were millions of questions bothering him, and he knew that no one would address them if he didn’t.

“How much longer do I have to give them?” he asked in a low voice, nodding towards the Alteans on the other side of the room, unable to hide a touch of disgust in the words. As much as he tried to believe that there was a rational reason for the order in which they were approaching things, there was no way for him to wrap his mind around helping one of their formerly worst enemies over saving their teammate, or at least properly trying.

“Patience, Keith,” Shiro reminded him, and didn’t bother finishing the sentence, because Keith knew the end of it.  _ Yields focus _ , he told himself, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It had helped him locate Red, keep a cool head during their more dangerous missions…

But would it really help fix the hole the loss of Lance was continuously tearing in his heart? Would it give him the energy to go on with the mission and put it above his own feelings? Would patience truly allow him to focus on what  _ had _ to be done rather than what he  _ wanted _ to do?

“I’m trying.”

And he was, although unable to say how long he would be able to.


	2. Schatten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: Write a lot so you'll have many chapters to upload regularly so there's never a long wait! <3  
> Me to me: Lololol upload two chapters back to back just because.  
> (Also me to you: UIFHUEIG thanks for all the comments and subs and everything I hope you'll keep enjoying as much as I do ;_;)

_ It’s dark. I’m cold. What is this place _ ?

Those were the only coherent thoughts Lance could form when he opened his eyes. A glint of light illuminated the freezing room he was in, but it wasn’t enough to properly make out anything around him. A steady, beeping noise coming from his side reminded him of being in a hospital, the sound of one’s heart rate on the heart monitor. When he looked to the side to check it out, there was only text he couldn’t read on a display that hardly helped illuminate the room. Figuring it wasn’t worth trying to understand what the foreign words meant, he tried to move his limbs, immediately coming to three conclusions:

One: He couldn’t. Move his limbs, that was.

Two: Even just trying to do it anyway hurt as if someone was running him over with a truck in slow motion.

Three: In him rose an unbearable, suffocating panic that he remembered all too well from the past, from the times he’d almost drowned while playing in the sea when he wasn’t supposed to, from the times he’d been nerve-wracking anxious about an upcoming exam.

Luckily, he at least knew how to deal with the latter, if only a little: He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, counted to five and let it out. Rinse and repeat. It didn’t help in any way against his increasing urge to cry, but it did help to prevent himself from hyperventilating. Like this, he could at least think straight again.

“Where am I?” he dared to ask no one in particular, his voice echoing back to him, suggesting that the room around him was mostly empty. His throat rebelled against the words, every sound leaving a dry, throbbing feeling inside it. 

At least he was alone, although only time would tell if that was a good thing or a bad one. The steady beep went on, driving him nuts but keeping him awake while the rest of his body immediately wanted to fall unconscious again.

What even had happened before this?

He remembered a bright, blue light...an explosion, maybe? Voltron had been on a mission alongside the Blade of Marmora. Something had gone wrong.

The blue lion appeared before his mental eye. The explosion threatening to hit it and, consecutively, the princess. Lance remembered relying on his instincts and rushing in with Red to shove her out of the way, and the indescribable pain that shot through both the lion and himself, but then…

Nothing. He couldn’t recall a single thing that had happened after that, as if he’d immediately fallen asleep and just now woken up. Part of him wanted to believe that it could be a blessing—because who knew what  _ pain _ he had experienced back there—but first and foremost, it was scary. There was absolutely no way for him to find out where he was, how he had gotten here, and how much time had passed. He was nothing short of terrified, really.

He decided to try and at least investigate on his body a little further. His arms and legs were pinned to whatever kind of chair he was half-sitting, half-lying on, and even just  _ trying _ to move them felt like scratching his arms open with rusty nails. He almost whimpered at the feeling, but bit his lip to hold it back. It was hard to say if the pain came from whatever was holding him down to the cold seat he was in, or if it was a consequence from the hit he’d taken—considering the way the rest of his body ached,  _ both _ was definitely a possibility.

_ Deep breaths. In, five seconds, out, five seconds. Clear your mind. Focus. _

It worked, but it only made the time pass by slower. He was practically immobile, alone, in the dark, unable to tell where he was and why, and what had brought him here. He felt like a caged bird with flightless wings, one that was unable to even let go of the stick it was sitting on. Minutes, hours, it all turned into one with the steady beep to his right and the constantly glowing, bright light to the left.

_ Hold on… _

Although  _ bright _ fit it best, he was now able to tell that the light was tinted purple. It wasn’t like any shape or shade he’d ever  _ seen _ on any mission, but he took it as immediate confirmation that he was in some sort of facility run by the galran empire, either a ship or some sort of laboratory. Needless to say, this realization didn’t  _ at all _ help him calm down. His very first thought was:

_ What if they have Red? _

And then, pouring down on him like acid rain, dripping into his mind with sheer brutality, came the ultimate, albeit incredibly deadpan understanding:

_ I’m going to die. _

The thought was so painful that he almost laughed with unrestrained  _ madness _ , but he didn’t get the chance to do so before a door somewhere behind him opened, brightening the room considerably, yet without making it any less frightening.

“It seems you’re awake, Paladin of Voltron,” a cold voice sneered at him, sending a shiver down his spine and making him feel sick. There was a sick sort of pleasure in the tone, and Lance had a decent idea of why that was the case. Although he still didn’t understand where he was and why, he was now able to see that there were all sorts of weird, foreign apparitions around him.

Honestly? Comparing it to everything he’d ever seen, it reminded him of the torture setup in an extremely brutal horror movie. His mouth went dry at the mental image, but he didn’t allow himself to indulge in the panic, at least not yet.

A shadow moved passed him first, followed by what he recognized to be one of the Empire’s Druids. He’d only ever briefly seen them, not gotten into any direct contact, but he was terrified just from the sight, his mind coming up with the most gruesome things that could happen to him now.

Even so, though, he was unable to keep his mouth shut, and equally unable to calm himself down.

“What did you do to me?! Where’s the red lion? Why am I here?!”

The answer was but a deep, quick laugh, entirely void of true amusement, then with a snap of fingers, the druid illuminated the room. Lance’s first instinct was to close his eyes and keep them shut, but curiosity won over—so, yeah, he was definitely in one of the Empire’s ships, that much he could see now; the grey walls and purple colors were a dead giveaway. He’d definitely never seen a room like this one on any of the cruisers they’d entered, but the overall design was similar enough to come to that conclusion.

“Do you think keeping me here will—”

He broke off into a fit of delirious laughter, his mouth dry, his throat aching as if someone had shoved sandpaper into it. It left him unable to speak and made it harder to breathe.

_ So much for not panicking _ , he thought, yet again trying to calm his mind down, with little to no effect whatsoever. How was he supposed to keep it down when one of the Empire’s scariest forces, druids with otherworldly magical powers, had him tied up, presumably far away from his lion, the team and any kind of safe place to flee to even if he could run? How was he supposed to come up with a plan on how to get out of here, when literally everything suggested that there was absolutely no way for him to even  _ move _ ?

“The red lion...interesting that you mention it,” the druid went on without looking at him, hands hovering over some sort of console that Lance could only make out the edge of. Before he could ask, yet again, what they were doing with him, a shock ran through him.

A literal, physical, electric shock that he would have sworn made his heart stop beating for a second. It was over as quickly as it had started, but it was nonetheless more than powerful enough to terrify him, so abrupt and painful that it left him breathless. His previous thought intensified.

_ I’m  _ definitely _ going to die. _

“Maybe a little motivation will help your memory.”

Nothing happened, only his own quickening breath kept Lance aware of the fact that this was still reality. Seconds went by, or maybe it was minutes, or hours or days or  _ years _ , but when he refused to say anything—not even sure what he was  _ supposed _ to say—the sharp, breathtaking pain returned. It was longer, this time, his eyes going wide with the sharp sensation occupying yet numbing all his senses, enough so to silence his screaming.

_ It hurts. It hurts it hurts it hurts ithurtsithurts _ .

Everything was melting together, a large, merciless maelstrom of both physical and mental pain—

The fact that he was alone with no one around to save him. The realization that even though he wasn’t going to make it out of this place, he would also not be granted a peaceful, quick death.

No. He was going to  _ suffer _ for however long he was going to be kept alive.

When the pain ebbed away, he took sharp, painful breaths, oxygen barely reaching his lungs. Everything hurt, from the air in his throat to his racing heartbeat. Keeping his eyes open hurt. Holding his tears back hurt. Staying awake hurt. Trying to pass out hurt.

“Playing pacifist, aren’t we?”

He was being toyed with, malicious glee now tainting the druids snarky voice. Lance knew he shouldn’t listen, but there was nothing else he could do, his body fully incapacitated. How long would it take for him to fall unconscious and die?

_ It’s a druid. One of Haggar’s forces, _ he couldn’t help but think.  _ He knows how to keep me alive for as long as he wants. _

Maybe he could lie. Maybe he could just admit the truth—he had no idea where the red lion was, after all, so no matter how long he was going to be tortured, he wouldn’t be able to give a satisfying answer; might as well try to assure them to kill him off quickly.

“I have…” he tried slowly, every single syllable burning in his throat as if it had been set on fire. “No...goddamn idea...where the red lion...is.”

Without warning, yet another wave of pain hit him, and he was so unprepared for it that it caused him to gasp—first mistake. Right after the pain faded, he coughed to get rid of the terrible tickling sensation in his throat—second mistake. Warmth filled his mouth, the taste of metal so disgusting that he could barely keep himself from vomiting. Instead, he swallowed—third mistake. It tasted so terrible that he coughed even more, increasing the pain and the amount of blood and the how sick he felt and— 

“S-stop,” he begged, too exhausted to care that it made him incredibly vulnerable. Not an inch of him believed that the Empire would show him mercy, but his instincts insisted that he should at least  _ try _ .

“Perhaps we could arrange an intermission—for the price of the red lion’s location, obviously.”

He whined, a high-pitched, mad sound, shook his head and vigorously ignored the fact that he was tearing up.

“I...don’t know…” he tried again, more desperate this time, yet with no hope that the druid would believe him.

With every single following shock that was being forced through his body,  or maybe inside out, his consciousness faded away, leaving but one thought.

_ I’m dying. _

_... _

_ I’m already dead. _


	3. Erkenntnisse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took a bit, but after some re-arranging, I think I've made some of the ridiculously short chapters a little more reasonable. Yes, I ignored/reconsidered a few canon aspects here, and there will be further explanations for that later in, promise!

The more detailed explanations on what had happened were nothing like what Keith had expected, all the while being _exactly_ what he had expected. Neither him nor Krolia had known about the empire’s attacks on any shield stations; not that it would have made a difference, considering there wouldn’t have been a way for them to help.

He listened to Pidge’s more detailed re-narration of the events; how they’d fixed the plate with the combined powers of the lions, how Shiro’s arm had been reacting badly to the control panel and how that had caused a short circuit. Keith could only imagine the insane amounts of electrical energy that Red and Lance had been hit by, and his stomach turned when his mind tried to wrap itself around the pain it must have caused—not to mention the fact that the impact had been strong enough to seemingly sent Red flying far enough for the rest of the team to lose sight of her.

“We were attacked after securing the plate,” Pidge went on, her voice thin and her legs pulled up to her chest tightly.

Silence was flooding the lounge, pressing as if everyone was screaming all at once. No matter how many times Keith tried to repeat the explanations in his head, his conclusion, his _disbelief_ stayed the same.

_How could they?_

And when it got too much to deal with, when no one dared to look at him after doboshes, or maybe quintants, there was no way for him to not say it out loud.

“I can’t believe any of you,” he began quietly, fingers digging into his hip to keep him occupied and drown out his desperate wish to start a very physical fight with the rest of the people he had once considered his team—right now, he wasn’t so sure if he could see them as that anymore.

“Keith, we didn’t...we’re still trying to locate Lance, and—”

“Spare me!”

He took a huge step towards Allura, and only let himself be stopped because it was Krolia who rested her hand on his shoulder, without applying any pressure that would be worth mentioning; she knew that just the indication of holding him back would suffice, at least for now.

“I’ve learned a lot since I joined the Blade of Marmora,” Keith went on instead, instinctively reaching for his knife and turning it in his head.

“ _Knowledge or death_. The mission is always more important than the individual. That’s what they taught me.”

And he knew that, eventually, that should be his sentiment—his credo, of sorts, words to live by and find comfort in at times like these, but there was one very distinctive difference for him between working with a group of rebels and working with the paladins of Voltron.

The Blade of Marmora, more than anything, meant professionality. It meant to fight for a greater cause and, if needed, throw away your life and that of your allies, even if only for the measeliest, tiniest bit of success.

Voltron, on the other hand—and the realization almost _shocked_ Keith a bit —had never been quite like that. Here, he had found a place to consider himself home in; sure, the term _home_ itself was difficult for him, because the emotions he had applied to it in the past weren’t necessarily the best, but with the team, he had learned that sometimes, it was okay to be selfish.

He’d learned to value his own feelings, and his own needs.

“When I left, it was always with the prospect in mind that I would have to change my approach at living. That I would have to be ready to throw my life away—and I was, because that’s how the Blade works.”

He took a deep breath and shook his head, chuckling dryly while still staring the other paladins down.

“That’s not how Voltron ever worked.”

Allura visibly flinched, and Keith was sure she remembered the time her sacrifice had saved Shiro, and how the team had immediately come to her rescue afterwards, even if it had been a dangerous thing to do. Both Pidge and Hunk were at a loss for what to say, and maybe on the brink of tears again, but Keith couldn’t bring himself to pity them. Coran was politely quiet, but there was a fondness in his expression that Keith could respect—he figured that ever since Lance had almost died to save him during Sendak’s infiltration of the castle, he’d _earned_ the spot as the advisor’s favorite paladin. Shiro, lastly, seemed almost detached from the conversation, the disappointed words Keith kept throwing at them. It was maddening, but Keith gave him the benefit of the doubt—Shiro had always been good at hiding his own emotions for the sake of others.

“We were lucky to be able to lock Lotor up for good, but that changes nothing. We’re going to focus on retrieving our paladin, our _friend_ ,” he made sure to spit the word out with as much animosity in his voice as he could possibly manage, “and by that, I mean we will do so _immediately_.”

He was aware that if they were to disagree with him and refused to obey to that order, there was hardly anything he would be able to do. They had no obligation to follow his lead in any kind of way, after all, especially not after he’d left the team before.

“I think Keith is right,” Hunk eventually broke the silence, scratching his neck nervously, frowning with what seemed to be genuine shame. “Lance is my best friend. I can’t believe I never insisted on trying harder to find him before prioritizing any of this.”

“The quintessence field was important, too,” Pidge argued, although her voice didn’t necessarily ooze with confidence. Keith figured that she couldn’t entirely jump ship and blame the team for trying to find the source of the Alteans’ alchemy, when she herself had also been selfishly focusing on trying to find her family more than once.

“Allura’s new-found powers were supposed to help us locate the red lion, remember?”

And while Keith understood why she was trying to compromise, he was far too angry not to snap at it.

“Tell that to Lance—considering we find him alive, after how long you’ve been playing around with Lotor.”

“Keith.”

Krolia’s voice wasn’t sharp or in any way accusative, but he still bit his lip and scowled angrily, holding back everything else he wanted to shout in his team members’ faces.

“I suggest we take a break,” she said firmly, earning her multiple affirmations. Keith hesitated, but when the light pressure on his shoulder turned into a more definite squeeze, he nodded reluctantly. As disgruntled as he was, there wasn’t any point in arguing with her; she was observing, and if she said that they needed a break, then that meant that they did.

“Fine. I still think every second we waste could be one too many,” he couldn’t keep himself from saying. “But at this point, who knows if it’ll even change anything.”

No one argued with him, and he was grateful for it—for the sake of peace, in the first place. Considering he would probably pick whatever fight anyone could currently throw at him, he decided to flee from the false, tainted reunion as quickly as possible.

“Three vargas,” he said, leaving no room for objections. “Regroup here.”

While tempted to take the wolf to leave, Keith figured he might as well walk a bit. He didn’t have a definite destination in mind, most likely due to the fact that he could barely think. As much as he knew that he should follow his mother’s advice and get some rest, he wasn’t delirious enough to believe that he would be able to fall asleep if he tried.

No.

Instead, he decided to busy his mind in the castle’s library. He’d done that before whenever things had been too much, because being forced to concentrate on understanding the words left little room for other thoughts occupying his mind. It was, if concentrated on, the perfect distraction.

It took hardly more than twenty doboshes before he let his head fall onto the table before him, book sliding onto the plate and immediately disregarded. Of course it wouldn’t work in _this_ kind of situation. How naive had he been?

Figuring that trying to forget didn’t work, he allowed himself to think about what was bothering him; the hundreds of questions plaguing his mind, the doubt and fears and insecurities bubbling up inside him.

_What if I had been here?_

_What if_ s hardly ever helped, because they focused on things that couldn’t be changed anymore. That didn’t make it easier not to think them, though. Keith hadn’t been there, he didn’t know how intense the fight had been, how many ships the team had gone against, and he knew that he wasn’t in the position to judge them for losing sight of Lance. But that didn’t stop him from wondering—what had changed in the time since his department that had caused them to fall apart like this?

It seemed like they didn’t even know how to effectively work as a team anymore. It wasn’t that they’d _wanted_ Lance to get hurt, Keith knew this, but they’d still let him down, due to not being able to work together properly. It was infuriating.

“Hey.”

Keith flinched at the voice coming from behind him, having been so lost in thought that he hadn’t even noticed anyone entering the library. He looked up from the table, but only enough to give his supposed _friend_ a cautious, wary look. There was a pained, pathetically weak smile on Hunk’s face, and his eyes did nothing to hide his own mourning. Even so, Keith had absolutely no intention to play nice, let alone the mental stability to currently do so.

His eyes followed the plate and cup that were being put onto the table right in front of him, and if his body weren’t such a traitor, immediately sending signals of desire through him, he would have probably refused.

“Krolia mentioned you hadn’t properly eaten in a while.”

Of course she had.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Keith replied dryly, eying the food a little suspiciously, “but I’m not at all in the mood to talk.”

“I figured that already.”

“But?”

He let the book snap shut and put it to the side, making that his only indication that he was at least going to _listen_. A dry, heavy silence followed, his eyes watching the small waves of blue liquid flowing in the cup. Neither the drink nor the food were like anything he’d ever seen on earth, as always, but they still looked way too delicious to deny, so he first took a sip of what turned out to be sickeningly sweet juice of sorts—his absolute guilty pleasure—and then a bite of the meal that looked like mashed potatoes, but surprisingly tasted like spicy curry.

“This is blackmail,” he decided, a little disappointed in himself about how soft his voice had become over some plain food. In his defense, though, he hadn’t had any proper food in god-knew how long, and Hunk’s meals were factually the best he’d ever had in his life.

“Maybe a little,” the yellow paladin admitted with a light, careful chuckle. “But you really look like you need it.”

“I do.”

They sat in silence for the time he spent eating. It would probably leave less of a bitter aftertaste if he were in a better mood, but oh well. There wasn’t necessarily tension between them, but Keith was torn between saying something and keeping his mouth shut for the rest of his life. All he could think of were accusations— _why did you, how could you, he_ _’s your friend, he’s our friend, what’s gotten into your minds_ —but he was well aware of how little that would change. The answer was painfully obvious, painted all over Hunk’s face.

He didn’t know either. He wouldn’t be able to explain what had caused them to neglect their team member and make the main objective anything but his safety. There was a sense of powerlessness in that, and it made Keith feel sick. He knew how hard it could be to make decisions, and with how much regret a wrong one could leave you. Even if one only meant well, it could result in causing nothing but harm.

“So?” Keith said eventually, when he couldn’t bear the awkward silence anymore—he knew that Hunk hadn’t come here to stare at him, and the three vargas of a break weren’t supposed to _increase_ the tension between them.

“I’m glad you’re okay, at least, you know?”

Keith looked up from the empty plate he’d been staring at, eyes wide with surprise. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate those words, but they came a bit out of nowhere. Then again, Hunk had always been one to be extra-scared of everything, always expecting the worst. He’d probably had his doubts about Keith returning in one piece.

“I never thought about it before coming back,” Keith realized with a deep scowl on his face. “But now I wish I could’ve said the same to _all_ of you. I never expected things to go wrong. It’s kind of…”

“Paralyzing?”

He nodded shortly, fingers clinging onto the mug in his hands. During Blade missions, he’d learned to have some sort of back-up plan in case things went wrong, because that was always a possibility. As for his return to Voltron though, just the thought of anything bad having happened to the team had never occurred to Keith, maybe because until now, they’d always found a way to set things right in the last second. It made him feel powerless.

“I figured I’d come back to a rambling Lance, and tell him to be quiet, like in old times.”

Having taken it for granted made him feel like a disgusting, selfish prick. This was a war they were in, and there was always the possibility of something going wrong, yet he’d continued on in the ignorant bliss of believing that all would be well upon his return.

“You can’t imagine how much I want to hear his stupid voice.”

And it hurt, it hurt _so much_ , made him want to give in and scream his lungs out about how unfair all of this was, but Keith bit his lip and willed himself to keep it together. He wasn’t going to crack. He wouldn’t allow himself to. Not before they’d found Lance.

 _And we will_ , Keith decided on the spot.

 _Even if it_ _’s the last thing we ever do._

* * *

When the three vargas came to an end, Keith found himself selfishly wishing he’d requested at least twice that length of a break. He shooed the thought away quickly, reminding himself that every second they wasted was a second their chances of finding Lance shrunk further and further.

“We’ve scanned the whole area for either Lance or the red lion,” Pidge stated matter-of-factly after they’d all regrouped in the lounge. It was a quick rundown of their advances so far, and she was having an incredibly hard time keeping herself together. “But they’re gone. As if a chasm opened up and swallowed them whole.”

She was audibly disgruntled, most likely both by the fact that this was theoretically a possibility, and the admittance of her own inability to bypass this problem. The loss of her friend wore her out, and Keith almost felt bad for lashing out earlier. Almost.

“How much time passed between the explosion and you finding that Lance was gone?” he inquired, arms crossed before himself and seated as far away from everyone else as possible, only the wolf allowed to snuggle up to him for company. Even Krolia kept a polite distance, although rather because she knew him well enough. She could read his facade effortlessly, and she knew that he needed space to breathe, or he would explode.

“Hard to say,” Pidge continued. “Shiro and I were outside of our lions, and both Hunk and Allura were too busy to really keep track of time, either.”

“I think it was a few doboshes only,” Hunk reeled in, although he didn’t sound too sure. He was fiddling with his headband, turning it in his hands with a pained expression before putting it back on. “But time flies in battle, so I can’t promise that.”

“It’s more than nothing. Is there a way to find out if any wormholes opened or closed in the respective area around that time?”

Now, it was Allura who spoke up, after Pidge gave her a puzzled look.

“Theoretically, yes. It could be possible to trace energy readings. However…”

Her expression was pained—it seemed like they’d considered this possibility before, yet discarded it for some reason. To Keith, it made no sense, so he gestured, hoping that it came off as questioning.

“We suppose that it’s not the distance that’s being a problem here,” she went on with a look at Coran, who nodded shortly. He was more serious than Keith had ever seen him before. Maybe they all were.

“If not the distance, then what?”

“The red lion is stubborn. It’s why we had so much trouble locating it in the first place. We can’t rule out the possibility of it having shut down to hide its signal on purpose.”

Which would mean that they had most likely no way of making out its current position, even if it were to hide behind the next planet they passed by. Keith knew that he would hate the answer before he worded his thoughts, but he did it anyway.

“Which reasons could there be for a lion to do that?”

Everyone exchanged looks, and he knew that they were thinking the same things as he was, because their expressions turned darker, and everyone seemed reluctant to voice their thoughts.

“There’s two major possible reasons. For one, it could be a defense mechanism,” Coran finally explained. “The lions can temporarily hide their position from anyone but their accepted Paladin if they wish to do so. This is to ensure that they’re not captured by the enemy too easily while unable to fully operate, and gives them time to partly recharge.”

“And the other option?”

Another long round of silence. Keith knew, as much as he tried to not think of it. He knew the answer before anyone could say it, but he kept staring at them one after another, waiting for someone to say it out loud. The voice inside his head told him that he was being unpleasant on purpose, that he played dumb so he could see the pained expressions on their faces, to see that they _did_ mourn what had happened.

Anything to prove him that they still cared.

It was Shiro who took mercy on them, although it was up to debate if it really eased anyone’s minds when he said what they already knew, gave it a voice and made it so real that the tension in the room increased heavily.

“The Paladin’s death.”

The following silence was so fragile that Keith was sure the room would _explode_ around them if anyone even dared to _breathe_ the wrong way.

Everyone’s faces screamed with feelings that needed to be voiced, but no one dared to be the first to make a move. It was surprising, in a way—they’d lost Shiro before, with the prospect of him possibly being dead as well, and while it had hurt and none of them had wanted to accept it, this felt nothing alike. Keith couldn’t put a name to it, and neither could the other paladins. Then, Coran spoke up, and everything started to make sense.

“Not the boy…”

There was an incredible tenderness in his voice; again, Lance had very obviously been his favorite ever since what had happened on Arus, and understandably so. But it wasn’t _only_ Coran. Pidge had taken a seat on the sofa, pulled her knees up to her chest and hid her head between them, but the way her body shook gave away that she was unable to keep her tears back any longer. Hunk was trying to calm her down by pulling her into a hug and whispering kind words to her, but he didn’t seem much less shaken by the dry realization. He looked like he’d just lost his closest brother, and Keith couldn’t blame him. Allura had taken a seat next to Romelle, who seemed to feel out of place, but still showed understanding and empathy, running a hand up and down the princess’s back for comfort.

The difference, Keith figured, was that Lance had always been someone they’d expected to be there, loud and obnoxious and annoying, a unit in the team that no one could imagine to be torn from them. He’d been the one to bring them all together in the first place, and maybe that was why the shock of him not being here sat deeper than the pain of losing Shiro.

For just a second, Keith felt sympathy for the rest of the group. Deep down, he knew they had never wanted Lance to get harmed—they _had_ tried to locate him, after all, but without Voltron, their firepower was cut a whole lot shorter, and without confirmation on why the red lion didn’t respond to their tries to locate it, there wasn’t really much they could do other than keep searching.

So while he wanted to be mad at them, he knew that parts of it were just a way for himself to ignore the fact that, first and foremost, he didn’t blame _them_ —he blamed _himself_ . No matter the reasons, no matter if Krolia and him finding Romelle had been essential for the fight against the empire, it all but paled in comparison to the unbearable, suffocating thought of _what if_.

And he knew, he _knew_ that it wouldn ’t change anything, that he needed to focus on what they could do now instead of what they’d failed to do before, but it still _hurt_ , and it occupied his mind, leaving him unable to think.

“Is there any way we can verify either of the statements?”

It was Krolia who spoke up eventually. The look in her eyes was firm and determined, but her voice was soft and considerate. She was a member of the Blade of Marmora, so she knew how to deal with casualties in war. She was also, however, a mother, and Keith knew how very well she understood the pain of losing someone like that.

"Disguising itself is a way for the lion to recharge. Even one as stubborn as the red lion won’t stay in that position forever," Allura explained with a frown, seemingly not entirely sure about her words. "We haven't really encountered a situation like this before, but if we keep searching for its signal, we should, at some point, be able to find out about its location."

"How long are we talking here?" Keith intervened. This could be mere doboshes, but what if it were movements or even phoebs?

"That's the difficult part; we don’t know how much energy the red lion had left when it shut down...if it shut down. Coran?"

The advisor took a moment to think, and shook his head a bit while mumbling an uncertain reply.

“Considering the time the lions take to recharge inside the castle...counting the heavy hit the red lion took...anything from a tick to whole movements is possible. It’s hard to tell.”

“It will have to do,” Keith assured, his voice steadied. That meant the only thing they could do for now was keep waiting and hoping; it would also give them time to contact the Blade and figure out what to do next, if there were any places nearby where they could help out.

“We will make use of the time to scout the surrounding area. As long as we stay in the possible signal range of Red, that should be fine, right?”

“Probably,” Pidge affirmed, her head now resting on her knees, her eyes red from crying, her glasses pushed up on her head. “But probably is the best we can get about this.”

“Seems like it.”

Not like that made anything better.

* * *

It was two quintants after his return that Keith noticed something being off. Aside from the obvious tension regarding Lance and the uncertainty of his whereabouts, there was an uncomfortable pressure between the team members, but Keith couldn’t come up with a good idea on how to approach it.

He wasn’t even entirely sure how he’d noticed it, but during a quick briefing regarding a small planet that had contacted them, he’d felt that, in a way, things between all of them were...odd. If it were only him they acted weirdly around, he probably wouldn’t even be bothering, but it was a general strangeness between everyone, and he knew that it was part of the reason why them working together had been such a mess lately.

They’d all agreed on helping, of course—there wasn’t much else they could do until they found either Lance or Red, and saving the universe was still their main objective. This included big and small planets, everyone who needed their assistance in any kind of way. Considering their situation, though—being a lion short and thus unable to form Voltron in case of emergency—they’d had a fair share of argumentation about it, from deciding who would help where over who would stay in the castle all the way down to backup plans, in case anything were to go wrong.

And that was where the oddities in everyone’s behavior started. They all seemed distant, lost in their own thoughts, less a unity than ever before. It were as if none of them even knew why they were doing this anymore.

The worst case of all, though, was Shiro. Keith had noticed it upon his return, but with passing time, in became more obvious—maybe because he’d known Shiro for way longer than the rest of the team, or because of how close they were. Either way, he was acting weirdly, seemingly more and more unfazed about everything going on, and Keith knew he had to bring it up.

The problem was that, whenever he thought it was a good moment to say something, one thing or the other had to get in the way. Sometimes, it was a distress signal, some other times, it was an attack or any other thing that could keep them occupied. Admittedly, though, sometimes it was even simply the fact that Keith had no idea what to say.

“ _You’re acting weirdly, Shiro,_ ” didn’t sound like the cleverest conversation-starter, especially since it was difficult to explain in what _way_ he was acting strangely. He would probably shrug it off and not let it happen again, but that would, obviously, not solve the actual problem. They didn’t need anyone to hide away from the rest and keep secrets—they needed to work together, especially now, and Keith felt that throwing it in the room thoughtlessly would not do them any good.

So instead, he observed. Watched Shiro’s every moment and reaction whenever they were discussing anything, or even silently doing whatever work had to be done. The only one he’d mentioned it towards so far was his mother, more to clear his mind than anything else, because how was she supposed to notice oddities in Shiro’s behavior if she had no or at least not much of an idea of what kind of person he’d been before?

Until now, it hadn’t been bad enough for Keith to actually worry about it—he’d wondered, yes, but he’d wondered about a lot of other things since his return as well. What put a nail in the coffin, though, was Shiro’s utterly _absurd_ suggestion after they’d helped liberate a small planet from the empire’s control.

“What if Lotor knows something about Lance’s whereabouts? We should consider interrogating him.”

The air grew cold on the bridge, a wild variety of emotions filling the atmosphere. Disgust, shame, disbelief, sadness, anger. Keith felt each and every one of them, and it took him a moment to even come up with an answer.

“Shiro...you know that I trust you, but...that’s nuts.”

“We can’t trust Lotor,” Allura cut in sharply, turned away from the group, disappointment, hatred filling her voice even more than ever. Of course, out of everyone, she was the least ready to speak of their former ally again, or even consider his assistance.

“But he might know something,” Shiro insisted quite coolly, giving everyone a quick look, frowning deeply and seemingly losing his patience. This wasn’t like him. This wasn’t like him at all.

“I don’t care! He’s betrayed us, and the entirety of Altea and the universe. I will _not_ work with him again, and I will _not_ risk him luring us into another trap!”

They kept fighting, blissfully ignoring whenever anyone tried to step in and be the voice of reason; neither of them were willing to listen, both letting out their piled up frustration about all the things they couldn’t currently do while they had to wait for a signal from the red lion.

He didn’t say it out loud, but part of Keith prickled with the desperate wish to join in on the fight, to shout and scream out his anger about the whole situation as well, but he knew he couldn’t—two of their leading figures had already lost their temper, were currently throwing accusations at each other that they would both regret, and if he were to do the same…

No.

“Is this getting us anywhere?!” he interrupted them, loud enough to get their attention, calm enough to not cause them to turn on him instead. They both turned to look at him, and while Allura’s face visibly fell, an embarrassed blush rising to her cheeks, Shiro didn’t seem ready to give in, instead turning to leave.

 _You have to bring it up_ , Keith told himself while watching his friend leave. _It_ _’s getting worse and worse and—you have to bring it up._

He took a deep, calming breath, all available eyes on him, but was cut off before he could even think of how to say it.

“I must apologize. I lost my temper in regard of...it’s a lot to take in. I shouldn’t have leashed out.”

“But you have a good reason to be upset, Allura,” Pidge threw in with a raised eyebrow and a small pout on her lips, arms crossed defensively.

“She’s right,” Keith agreed with a short nod. “The betrayal is still like a fresh wound, and I don’t blame you. In all honesty, I’d rather jump out of an airlock than trust Lotor regarding Lance.”

“Talk about grim,” Hunk muttered under his breath, but didn’t seem to disagree with the statement.

“I’m worried about Shiro, though,” Keith continued and immediately found all eyes back on himself, curiously so. He figured that the rest of the team expected Shiro’s outburst to be equally emotion-driven as Allura’s, but that was the exact problem. He hadn’t seemed emotional _at all_ —on the contrary. Even while screaming, his expression had been cold, unconcerned even, as if the topic at hand didn’t _really_ matter to him.

“I think I know what you mean,” Hunk agreed, tapping his chin a little, as if trying to remember something very important. “He’s been so...detached, lately. Maybe he’s having flashbacks again or something?”

“I don’t know. But I think everyone should keep an eye on him, just in case.”

They all hummed their affirmations, and eventually the group split up for a break. There wasn’t really much they could do, and Keith was tired of trying to force himself to read books to clear his mind, so he decided to go for another method that he usually went for—training, fighting until he couldn’t breathe and couldn’t think anymore.

“Keith, wait.”

He turned around just outside of his room, seeing that Pidge had followed him and apparently ran the last bit of the way, because she was breathing heavily and taking a moment to take deep breaths.

“What’s the matter?” Keith asked curiously, not sure what to make of this. Pidge talking to him in private was, in itself, a rarity. Most of the time, they didn’t have any mutual interests to go on about, other than if it had to do with Voltron; in which case she could have brought it up earlier with the team, so…

He felt really bad thinking about it that way, all things considered. They _were_ still friends, after all, even if things were currently very difficult.

She nodded, though, and pointed towards the door to her room a little further down the hallway.

“Just wondering about something.”

They made their way over in silence, and Keith couldn’t help but smirk at how different her room was from his—there were electrical devices and books everywhere, different light sources and robot parts and samples of countless planets. He liked it, in a way, although his own rather minimalistic room was still much preferred.

“It’s about Shiro,” Pidge suddenly said quietly, as if anyone could hear her voice it if she spoke up. Keith’s attention was immediately on her, all casual thoughts about the interior forgotten. He should have expected this, maybe, but he’d not wanted to let himself hope.

So it wasn’t only him he noticed something being off, right?

“He’s acting strangely,” Keith began, searching for the words to explain it right. “I’ve known him for years, and he’s been...like family to me. I’ve watched him a lot, tried to live up to be the kind of person he is. This change of behavior is...worrying.”

“It’s also extremely dangerous,” Pidge agreed, absentmindedly patting the bed next to herself while looking for something on her laptop. Keith took the seat and peeked over her shoulder, but couldn’t make much out of what he was seeing; it looked like security footage of the castle, taken with a drone or something similar.

“Did you build another Rover?” he asked half-jokingly, but was actually curious.

“Something similar, but yes. Keith, I...I feel bad for doing this, but I’ve been...watching Shiro for a while.”

The statement filled the room like a bomb close to detonation. Would it be best to run away from it, or try to defuse it, or take it and throw it as far away as possible? Ticks kept passing mercilessly, and Keith couldn’t come up with a good answer, so he simply nodded, which caused her to go on.

“When we...when Shiro and I tried to reactivate the solar shield through a panel, it short-circuited. I explained this before.”

He nodded again, this time trying to ignore the emotions that were tied to this event—the mental image of Lance and the red lion taking in an entire explosion and being thrown away from the rest of the team, the loss of their comrade, the empty feeling of returning to a quiet castle—

Keith couldn’t think about this right now, or it would undoubtedly cloud his judgment. He needed to focus.

“I wasn’t sure why Shiro’s arm malfunctioned right there, but ever since then, he kept acting a little...off. Maybe even before that, I’m not sure, but it became evident afterwards.”

“How so?”

She shifted a little and gestured, trying to find the right words. She was visibly trying to avoid vilifying Shiro, but it seemed like there wasn’t much of a way around it.

“He was detached, just like Hunk said. I guess hearing him say that confirmed my suspicions, so I figured I should tell at least you. I’ve had this...crazy theory, and I can’t prove it in any way, so I didn’t want to bother the team with it—”

“Remember: A crazy theory is what led me to the blue lion,” Keith insisted diplomatically. “I won’t judge.”

A soft chuckle left her lips, but it sounded more sad than anything else. As much as she usually hid away, she was affected greatly by all of this, by the loss of a friend and ally, and she was visibly having a hard time hiding it the more time passed.

“It was as if Shiro...no, as if _his arm_ didn’t want us to accomplish the mission. As if it, somehow, knew what we were doing, and tried to prevent us from that.”

She gave him a moment to take that in, but Keith was at a loss of what to make of this kind of information. The _arm_ didn’t want them to accomplish the mission?

“Elaborate.”

“I think someone could be controlling Shiro through his arm. Somehow.”

It crashed down on them like cubes of hail, and the pieces fell into place. Shiro’s weird behavior, his emotional reluctance, his little to non-existent interest in their current mission, his willingness to consult _Lotor_ , of all the possibilities, to help them…

It suddenly made sense.

“Where’s your drone right now?” Keith asked, his breath going quickly, his heart beating in his throat. He had a hunch, instinct telling him what to do, and he knew better than to cast it aside and regret it afterwards.

“It’s currently patrolling the lions’ hangar, just in…just in case, I guess. Why?”

“Do we have a way to quickly check in on Lotor?”

“Wha—Sure,” she cut herself off after seeing his serious expression, and typed away on her laptop quickly. Whatever she did caused the screen to show the cell Lotor was being kept in.

“Pidge, I can’t explain,” Keith pressed out quickly while getting up. “But something tells me I need to go there, right now. If anything strange happens, contact the rest of the team.”

“Keith—”

“No, not now! Just...trust me. I know this is strange, but…please try.”

She nodded reluctantly and kept watching her screen, while he made his way to leave the room. He needed to get into his armor, now, because if what he was thinking turned out to be true…

He couldn’t. He couldn’t bring himself to formulate the thought, not before there was any sort of concrete hint to it being true. Instead, he hurried to change and made his way over to the prison cell, fearing for the worst.

 _What if_ , his mind tried to convince him, but he kept pushing the thought aside. _What if, what if, what if_.

What if the politeness had been a facade? What if Shiro wasn’t himself anymore, if he was being controlled through his artificial arm, and none of them had ever even noticed it? What if he would endanger them all, _again_ , by freeing Lotor?

He’d done it before, and now it finally started to make sense.

“ _Keith?! Keith, do you hear me?!”_

The voice he heard through his helmet was frantic, and all but confirmed what he’d been dreading.

“Pidge? What is it?”

“ _You were right. Can’t explain. Hurry, we’re on our way, too!”_

It hurt. Having to question the person he had once trusted the most out of all, it _hurt_ , but Keith did as he’d been told—he hurried, he ran, all the rest of the way to where they kept Lotor, only to find himself facing the exact scenery he’d feared the most.

Shiro. On the brink of making the same mistake he’d made before by freeing their mortal enemy. There was no explanation for it this time other than betrayal or control, and Keith hated them both with a passion. What was he supposed to do? He could fight, but even if he did stand a chance, he didn’t want to harm his friend.

His subconscious made the decision for him, made him sprint the rest of the way over the long bridge, and he only came to a halt when it was hardly two meters separating him from Shiro, who turned around slowly, not even meeting his eyes.

“What are you doing?” Keith asked, _pleaded_ , hoping that there was some sort of reasoning behind this that he couldn’t wrap his mind around, although he very well knew that there wasn’t.

“Don’t get in the way, Keith.”

The words were finite, but not hostile, as if a rational part of Shiro still knew who he was talking to. There was something clouding his mind, undoubtedly, and Keith was scared of thinking which kind of measures he might have to make use of in order to stop his friend, but ultimately, he would.

Shiro would want him to, after all.

“Shiro...I don’t want to do this, but if you force me to fight you...I will.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and Keith felt himself barely able to withstand the force radiating from Shiro’s eyes—the sheer cold coming from them, the way he lifted his chin just enough to look down on Keith. It was terrifying. It was in this moment that he saw, for the first time, how strong of a fighter Shiro was; Galra prisoners had called him _champion_ , for defeating a monster so horrible that no one had been expected to even fight it, let alone win.

Truth be told, Keith wasn’t sure if he’d be able to do it. He summoned his bayard and, consecutively, its sword-form, ready to defend himself and prevent Shiro from freeing Lotor, but that didn’t stop his hands from shaking, cold sweat from running down his face, his heart from raging inside his chest. He didn’t want to do this. He wasn’t sure if he could—

He wasn’t given the chance to decide.

In the blink of an eye, he saw the artificial arm reach out and swing in his direction, and barely managed to raise his sword up defensively. The power behind the blow was incredible, although that wasn’t too much of a surprise. He ducked away and took a step back, considering his chances. There was no way he was going to defeat Shiro in a fight like this—he’d never been able to during training, so he wouldn’t be able to now. All Keith could do was buy time, or—

He gasped at the realization.

If Pidge was right, which he hoped greatly, the mind-control Shiro was going through came from his arm. Would that mean that cutting the connection to the arm would also break the connection to whoever controlled Shiro through it? It wasn’t a safe bet, but the best one Keith could make. That left him with one problem: How was he supposed to fight against the strongest part of a body? Usually, he would go for weaknesses, but he didn’t even want to try and hurt Shiro unnecessarily.

 _A new approach, Keith. Think. You don_ _’t need to win._

Normally, he would attack before the enemy got the chance to even notice him. But this wasn’t normal, so he wouldn’t try. He waited patiently, lowering his guard a little. If only this place wasn’t so incredibly narrow, he might have been able to get around Shiro and take out the arm from the other side, but like this, even trying such a maneuver would be like suicide.

“Are you giving up, Keith? How reserved. Not how I remember you at all.”

He found himself smiling at the words melancholy, but they were true—reservedness wasn’t really what Keith thought was his biggest strength; he usually relied on his team mates when it came to that, because he knew they’d have his back whenever he reached too far. When he got too caught up in a fight, too cocky, too experimental, they would have his back.

 _Lance_ would have his back.

But Lance wasn’t here, and Keith knew he needed to cover the leaks in his defense on his own. Whenever in trouble, Lance had been there, shooting whatever obstacle might have been flying in Keith’s direction, and for the first time, now that he was entirely on his own in a fight like this, Keith realized how much of a difference it had actually made.

Part of him wanted to be sad. Disgruntled. Angry. Wanted to flood him with the feelings he’d refused to let in since his return. He still refused. Instead, he took it as the reason he needed to go on, the motivation to take a deep breath, think, scan his surroundings. It wouldn’t be long until the rest of the team would be here—mere ticks, maybe, or a few doboshes at worst. Neither of them worked with him the same way that their sharpshooter had used to, but it would be enough to distract Shiro, and for Keith to stop him.

There’d be time for remorse, for pain and hurt and longing. But it wasn’t right now.

“I’ve learned a lot since I left,” Keith teased and got into a more proper fighting stance again; not a second too early, either. With a loud clash of metal, their weapons met again, but he didn’t bother putting too much strength into it. All he had to do was buy time.

Just a little. Just a tiny bit more.

“ _Keith, we’re coming in.”_

Pidge’s voice had never sounded more liberating, more supportive, had never been more appreciated.

The rest of the team stormed over the bridge leading to the cell, causing a commotion that affected both Keith and not-Shiro. They knocked each other onto the ground, then there was silence—nothing happened for a few seconds, right before Keith saw something whip past him in the corner of his eyes.

 _Pidge_ _’s bayard_ , he figured, and watched it try to wrap around Shiro ’s body. They all knew that, while he wasn’t being himself, he was still _in there_ somehow, so they avoided to actually hurt him.. This, however, resulted in the fact that he had the upper hand in the fight; the space made it hard for Keith to dodge his powerful attacks, the doubt about hurting him made it hard to attack rationally.

“Keith, target the other arm!” he heard Allura’s voice call out for him, and although he didn’t understand why she asked him to do that, he did. With a swift movement, he swung his blade in the direction of Shiro’s left arm, and saw him reach to block the attack with his right. This enabled Pidge and Allura to combine their weapons’ power and pin him down, at least for a moment.

This was it. Keith got up to his feet, starting to realize how much energy both his sprint here and the short fight had drained. His breath was unsteady, quick, his vision slightly blurry. He needed to finish this, cut off the artificial arm like he’d planned from the get-go, but something caused him to hesitate.

“What will happen if we sever the connection?” he asked the approaching group, scanning their faces for any sign of knowledge. Everyone but Pidge looked confused, though, and she simply shook her head. There was no way for them to predict what would happen if they cut it off.

“But Keith,” she said quietly, taken a step closer towards him. “We can’t _not_ do it.”

She was right. If they were to leave Shiro with the artificial arm that, now quite obviously, somehow controlled his actions and even his mind, then they would definitely not be able to get rid of the problem. Keith knew he had to do this, no matter how much it hurt to see his friend struggling against the bayards keeping him on the floor.

 _Now or never_ , he thought, closed his eyes shortly to take a deep breath, and raised his weapon to where the arm was connected to Shiro’s body.

“I’m sorry for doing this, Shiro,” Keith insisted quietly, before cutting the arm off in one quick motion. He’d expected many things—to be met with resistance, to hear his friend scream in pain and agony and despair, to watch him faint.

Hell, he’d even expected the low possibility of the arm having nothing to do with Shiro’s weird behavior, no matter how much that would have hurt.

Instead of any of these things, there was an unexpected short-circuit, sending sparks and a burst of energy from the arm through the blade and towards Keith. He barely managed to back away, felt how it still hit his face like a wave of heat, and let out a pained gasped before falling onto his back and holding his cheek.

“Keith! You okay, buddy?”

He nodded and let Hunk help him to his feet. The pain ebbed away quickly, but the uneven structure of his warm skin assured him that it would leave behind at least a scar. A small, painful reminder of all the signs they had all missed until now.

“Did it...work?” he asked, suddenly very aware of how exhausted he was.

 _Just a little longer,_ he thought. _Just until you_ _’ve made sure that he’ll be okay._

“Can’t say before he comes to, I guess,” Pidge insisted, but her voice was already far away. Keith knew that he nodded, but the words hardly reached him. Was this a good thing or a bad one? Had he possibly harmed Shiro? That was not what he’d wanted at all.

“Keith? Come on, stay with us!”

He tried, he _really_ tried, but his head hurt and his heart ached and all he wanted was for this terrible nightmare to come to an end, yet as much as he hoped and begged, he very well knew—

He knew this was hardly the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Keef oemge don't eat in the effing library, will ya?~~


	4. Verwirrung

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yyeeeaah, so, I have quite a bit of this lying around, and I just always forget to proof-read and make proper chapters of it. D: I'm very sorry.  
> I still hope you like it. :)

When Lance finally came to, he could remember only a single thing—uncontrollable fear. Of dying, of his mind slowly descending into a state of absolute madness and his body crippling away with no way for him to fight back. Panic arose in him, but when he tried to pull his knees up to his chest for comfort, he realized there was nothing holding him back any longer. He was still in incredible pain, his ribcage pressing into his lungs with every breath he took, each and every one of his muscles tensing up as he forced himself into a sitting position. Yet again, there was darkness, but this time he wasn’t granted even the mercy of the smallest light source at all—at least the mind-wrecking, constant _beep_ had stopped, and he was able to run a hand through his sweaty hair. It was sticky, disgusting, and he instinctively pulled on the wet streaks that were seemingly glued to his skin. His head felt light and heavy at the same time, his mind numb yet overloaded with emotion.

Everything hurt, but in a way, he felt nothing.

 _It'_ _s still cold_ , he realized, and the familiar weight of his armor was missing, too—that also meant that he wouldn’t be able to defend himself, even now that he could move; not that he would be in any condition to fight in the first place, but having his bayard would’ve probably made him feel a lot less vulnerable still.

Cautiously, he let his hands trace down his own body. His chest was still covered by his undersuit, but the pants were slightly torn on his knees and shins—he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten from the torture room to wherever he was now, but judging from the itchy pain on his legs, he figured that he’d either been dragged over the floor or at least thrown onto it roughly. Not that it mattered.

He let his hands rest on his thighs and willed himself to take calm, steady breaths—each of them burned in his throat, like sparks dancing in it, but as long as he didn’t inhale too sharply, the pain was bearable. He squinted, trying to make out anything, but the room stayed pitch-black. When he looked to the side, still searching, the motion sent a cold wind over his skin; there were leftovers of dried tears and blood on his face.

Even just the memory made him feel sick. As much as he tried not to think of it, he couldn’t keep his mind from imagining going through that again, this time longer, more ruthlessly, without any mercy.

 _I didn'_ _t die yet_ , he figured without even a hint of gratefulness about that fact. Things would have been so much easier if he _hadn'_ _t_ survived the torture.

Time passed—he had no means to measure how much, other than counting the seconds, but his head hurt too much to even try that. When nothing happened for what felt like half an eternity, he pulled himself up to his feet, the task more difficult than ever before in his life.

Putting weight on his legs hurt. It felt like he’d overdone it tenfold during a weight-training session at a gym, every muscle rebelling against his command. Judging from all the movies he’d seen, it was probably the result of muscle spasms. He hated that he knew this, but couldn’t do anything with the information.

Holding out his hands before his body, he moved—slowly, one step at a time, still focused on breathing so that it wouldn’t tear his chest apart. His heart was racing from both stress and apprehension, and something told him that even just so much as coughing could cause him to pass out yet again.

For a few steps, there was nothing; only empty air bristling against his trembling fingertips. Then, all of a sudden, he touched something cold; metal? It seemed to be a wall, or maybe even a door, but he couldn’t say for sure. His fingers traced over the cold surface desperately, his mind already aware that he wouldn’t find a handle to free himself anyway. How much could he do other than try, though?

He reached a corner and followed the next wall, with no more success than on the first one. The procedure was energy-draining, and for the first time, he was glad that he couldn’t see anything—something told him that if his brain had to handle even one more thing in this exact moment, he’d double over and vomit his insides out on the spot. Thinking of it caused him to gag and whine, but he managed to compose himself and keep it in. Right after a visual sensation, a nasty smell was the last thing he thought he would be able to deal with right now.

Just when he was about to give up, he felt something _different_ from the even surface. It felt like a keyhole, but he couldn’t say for sure, and he didn’t really care, instead following his first instinct: He threw his fists into the wall right above the lock continuously, the loud echoing sound almost deafening him, the pain in his fingers keeping him wide awake.

“Let...me out!” he desperately _tried_ to shout, albeit with little success. It wasn’t like he truly hoped to be successful, and maybe that was the reason why he took a generous step back when the heavy door in front of him actually opened up, a screeching sound reaching his ears, light flooding the room just before he quickly pressed his eyes shut.

_Reduce stress level. Focus on breathing and standing. Don'_ _t double over._

“It seems you’re ready for the test, Paladin.”

He didn’t recognize the voice, and didn’t bother opening his eyes to find out who it belonged to. Druid or not, whoever could address him in this cold, unforgiving place had to be an enemy per default. Lance figured it wasn’t worth frightening himself even more.

His plan to keep his eyes shut worked for approximately ten seconds—then, a big, vicious hand grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the room with brute force, and his eyes instinctively flew open. The burning sensation of light almost made him go blind, but he wasn’t given the time to mull over the pain before already being pulled along.

At least now, he recognized the interior of a Galra-cruiser clearly—not that it made anything easier, but in a way, that was still better than finding himself in a place that was entirely foreign. The person tearing him down the hallways, though, wasn’t anyone he’d ever seen—judging from his form and armor, it was seemingly a commander.

Lance tried to remember the directions they took, just in case he ever managed to regain enough strength and come up with a plan to flee from his prison at some point in the future, but the dull ache throbbing in his head made it quite hard to even keep his breath even.

_Breathe. Breathe. Ignore your heartbeat. Ignore the pain._

It was so much easier said than done.

When they came to a halt, it was in front of an eerily glooming door. Something told him that the second he stepped inside whatever room was behind this, he would cross a point of no return.

Just for a moment there, trying to leash out and provoke a fight so he would be thrown back into a cell...the thought was pretty tempting.

Before he could make up his mind, though, the door was opened, he felt himself being shoved inside and the door closed behind him. His legs hurt so much that he couldn’t keep himself in an upward position, so he dropped down onto his knees, a sharp sound escaping his lips when he came in contact with the floor, a wave of pain rushing through his whole body. Only then did he allow himself to cast a cautious look throughout the room.

In a way, it reminded him of the training deck back in the castle of lions. The thought hurt, reminded him that the rest of the team was probably looking for him, that they needed a fifth paladin and, most importantly, the red lion, all the while Lance didn’t even know where he was, let alone how much time had passed since he’d been brought here.

“ _Starting simulation,”_ came a mechanic voice from above, but he didn’t bother looking up to find out where exactly it was located. Simulation? If this was supposed to be some sort of fight, there was no way anyone would expect him to last even for a minute, right? He could barely stand, let alone walk, his whole body felt like it was on fire, all of his senses were entirely overloaded, and judging from his current state of mind, the most likely thing that would happen if anyone were to attack him, would be him standing still to get killed as quickly as possible.

Somehow, he couldn’t help but let out a dry, painful chuckle at the thought, and it left his mouth as hardly more than a croaking sound. The irony of this whole situation was truly marvelous. He’d seemingly almost died in the process of saving his team mate, only to be found by the Galra empire and die for literally nothing.

There wasn’t even anyone _watching_ , from all Lance could judge. He wasn’t even good enough to entertain an audience. They were going to kill him after all, because—what? Because they’d realized that he really was the idiot of the group, that they wouldn’t get any kind of information of either Voltron or the red lion out of him? It was _pathetic_. Maybe, if he was lucky, the rest of the paladins would remember him as _the one who was so dumb that the empire couldn_ _’t use him against us_.

Although that would require anyone to bother remembering him, and the nasty little voice in his head wasn’t necessarily a strong believer right now.

A small platform next to himself gave away and revealed a weapon that suspiciously reminded him of his own rifle—it definitely wasn’t his bayard, but it came close. Everything in him rebelled against the thought of fighting against whatever this simulation would turn out to be, but when he saw the first sentries emerge from the floor a few meters from him, his mind automatically switched.

He was a sharpshooter, after all.

If asked afterwards, he wouldn’t be able to explain how he did it, but somehow, facing multiple humanoid robots with laser guns shut down every single coherent thought on his mind, caused him to reach out for the weapon lying next to his knees and aim it at the attackers, one after another. Admittedly, their combat level was pathetic—hardly any of them even _tried_ to shoot him, and the one laser that grazed his shoulder was nothing in comparison to the pain he’d been going through before; in fact, he barely even noticed it.

Only when the last of the sentries was out cold, the mechanic voice returned.

“ _Simulation complete. Awaiting instructions.”_

Part of him wanted to scream for a higher combat level, one that would flood the room with so many sentries that he’d be turned into Swiss cheese in the matter of mere seconds. He doubted, however, that the simulator would listen to his orders, and instead lay down against the cold floor. Somehow, the fear and anxiety he’d felt before had been turned into nothing but _rage_. Even in a situation like this, it seemed that he was only kept alive for some sort of convenience he didn’t yet understand.

Where was the point in throwing him here to fight off sentries? Who had given the order to keep him hostage in a place like this, and what were their ultimate plans? What would have happened had he _not_ picked up the weapon in order to protect himself?

“Why all this?” he asked no one in particular, exhaustion causing his eyes to fall shut. He knew he shouldn’t fall asleep here, vulnerable, _defenseless_ even, but with every passing tick, he found it more difficult to fight the dizziness engulfing him. He was thirsty, hungry, and still incredibly tired. His body ached, his mind was a roller coaster of every possible negative emotion he could imagine he would ever feel. Not even saving his skin albeit the terrible state he was in made him feel any kind of positivity or even pride. All he could think of was how much he wished he could turn back time, how much he wished he could see his home, his _family_ , just once more.

When he finally gave in and let his mind shut down, he would have sworn he could hear the comforting sound of a warm wind dancing between large ocean waves.

For only a second, all he knew was peace.

* * *

 

To his own surprise, Lance wasn’t in any way delirious when he opened his eyes. He was fully aware of what had happened before his unconsciousness, although he had no way to say how long ago that had been. He found himself lying flat on the floor again, supposing that it was, once more, the cell he’d been in before. Surprisingly, he noticed that nothing hurt anymore.

 _A dream_ , he thought, disappointed. _It has to be._

However, he tended to be a fan of old-fashioned tropes, so he formed an O with his right thumb and index finger, and pinched himself in the left arm. It stung well enough to not be a dream, or so he hoped. It didn’t, however, make things any clearer at all.

Before passing out after the simulation, he’d felt every bone and nerve in his body ache, his heartbeat stealing his breath, his throat dry and hot, his ribcage pressed against lungs that had seemed swollen, his face covered in blood and his stomach on the verge of boiling over.

Now, there was nothing. He wasn’t feeling _well_ , necessarily, and whatever treatment he’d been given had done absolutely nothing about his wrecked nerves, but his body was alarmingly content. Even lying on the stone-cold floor of a dark cell with nothing but his own mind to keep him company managed to make him feel anything close to pain.

Although he didn’t want to, he found himself indulge in it. Sure, it was probably a trap, a way to make him feel safe, maybe even a sick, dirty game, as revenge for all that the paladins had done to Zarkon’s empire. After all, there were still countless forces willing to keep the central power a thing, willing to continue their mission to enslave the entirety of the universe and get rid of whoever could possibly pose a threat to that mission.

 _Voltron, for example_ , Lance found himself thinking. With himself out dry, there were really only two options; either Red was lost somewhere in space, being pursued by the empire to intervene in Voltron regrouping, or she had made her way back to the castle and the paladins had managed to bring Keith back, which would explain and put definite closure to why there wasn’t even a sign of them trying to save Lance. As long as they had Voltron, they didn’t need him anymore.

An ugly sob escaped him, and he ran a shaking hand down his face, cringing at the feeling of dried blood that was still sticking to his skin for god-knew how long by now. It shouldn’t bother him in his current situation, but hell if it didn’t subconsciously worsen his self-loathing state of mind even further.

“What if no one’s even _trying_ to find me?” he asked no one in particular—maybe himself, or the fickle leftovers of his connection with Red, who was probably happy to be able to finally return to her favorite pilot. She’d saved Keith so many times when he’d been her pilot, and yet here Lance was rotting away in some weird Galra ship, not an ounce of help in sight. How incredibly devastating.

Why hadn’t he just let the simulation kill him off? Where had he taken his sense of instinctive fighting from, when there was really nothing left to fight for in him? He wouldn’t be able to return to the rest of his team, because they’d probably long but moved on. He wouldn’t ever see his family again, and after the pain he’d put them through by just disappearing, maybe that was for the best, too. Who knew if they even still missed him anymore?

But while all of that hurt, nothing even competed with the utter betrayal of having been abandoned by Red. Out of all the options, the lion was the only one for which Lance couldn’t find an excuse. They’d fought together, bonded, and if any of that bond was left at all, then why didn’t she bother finding him? When Keith had been at the Blade of Marmora headquarters with Shiro, she’d gone nuts over the need to save him.

Keith... _Keith._

Angry tears piled up in Lance’s eyes, brows furrowed and lips tightly pressed together. That stupid hothead of a former paladin; the reckless, intuitive one. There were so many things he’d still wanted to tell Keith, or maybe scream at him or cry or fall to his knees in shame and agony and utter jealousy and beg him to take notice of a lame boy who’d never been as good as him.

Hell, judging from what was going on right now, Lance wasn’t even good enough to walk in Keith’s footsteps, let alone next to him. Surpassing him had long but become a futile, irrational dream of the past; Lance knew he’d never even stood a chance to win this rivalry.

And now he would take it all to his early grave; the anger and fear and envy and pride, the admiration and fondness and friendship and—

_Screw it._

He was lying flat on a floor, the cruelty of fate restlessly raining down on him and tearing him apart. It was the furthest he could get from falling, from the winds of freedom engulfing him and carrying him far away.

But he’d never been falling worse than now. Had never felt more guilty about the things he’d said, the things he hadn’t said, the things he knew would keep repeating themselves in his mind for the days or weeks or months of torture he had left to live before he would pitifully die, long forgotten by anyone who’d ever known him.

He didn’t look up when the door opened with a screeching noise, and didn’t fight back when he was pulled to his feet. He didn’t bother asking any questions as he was escorted the same way as before, this time by sentries keeping their weapons aimed at his head in case he tried anything, but he didn’t. There was no urge in him to fight a battle he knew he would lose, and no will power in him to believe that he could win. Even with his wounds healed, he wasn’t in any kind of mental condition to come up with a plan, let alone any serious options to execute it.

“ _Starting simulation.”_

This time, the words filled him with a flickering fire; it didn’t matter if he lived tomorrow, and if his body refused to let him give in, then maybe he would die trying to find out how many of the robotic enemies he could defeat.

He was going to spend the last miserable moments of his pointless life in a foreign place, he was going to die alone and meaninglessly, and all he could do to try and not go insane over that realization was the one thing he had always been best at:

He put on his mask and pretended it didn’t hurt.

* * *

 

After what felt like a few days—he couldn’t say for sure, considering he was trapped in a pitch-black cell on a lonely ship—Lance stopped questioning the times where he was forced into the simulator. The sentries got increasingly powerful, but no matter how terribly exhausted he was after a fight, he always found himself considerably rested whenever he came to. While part of him wanted to be grateful for this, it was, primarily, frustrating. Sure, the pain was gone whenever he opened his eyes, but he still remembered it perfectly well, every single time, felt it lingering in his muscles, in his shaking fingers, in the cold, dried tears on his face and the leftover blood covering his suit and skin.

 _A bath would be great,_ he couldn’t help but think at one point, with oozing streaks of hair being glued to his forehead, and a terribly itching sensation wherever dry sweat stuck to his wrecked body. With every time they pulled him out of his cell, he felt more and more like asking for it. Somehow, he didn’t need food, or at least he couldn’t recall having had any since coming here, but whoever took care of his wounds and need for nutrients through some druid magic mumbo jumbo clearly didn’t find it necessary to shower him with some holy water.

Lance couldn’t help but chuckle dryly at the irony of it.

The procedures became consistent. Wake up in a sweat, throw looks around quickly but find nothing, panic, dig for clues in his memory, remember, cry, scream, be forced into endless battles against emotionless robots, pass out, rinse and repeat. He wondered if, one of these days, he would just stop feeling the pain, would learn how to deal with it as if it weren’t even there. He wondered if, someday soon, he’d overdo it enough to die in a battle, quite unfortunately. He wondered if, at any point in the future, he would find peace.

He didn’t dare hope for it.

One day, whatever that meant in the context of timelessness that Lance had adjusted to, he wasn’t granted the bliss of passing out after a few rounds of exercise against the sentries. Instead, they suddenly all disappeared, the simulation ended before he was even remotely exhausted, and the masked commander of the empire that had initially torn him here entered the room, the druid who’d tortured Lance right behind him.

What the hell could this be about?

He’d only just adjusted to the schedule of pain and exhaustion and hopelessness, and now it seemed like they were going to find another way of putting him through new levels of horror. Perhaps it would be easiest to raise his weapon to his own head and end everything quickly, but all the times he’d attempted this, some sort of survival instinct had held him back.

Personally, he preferred calling it _cowardice_ , but tried to hide this truth even from himself. It was a little embarrassing, to be unable to end this eternal, merciless circle of ruthless punishment, just because the faintest glint of hope was still sparkling somewhere in the back of his mind, waiting to be either fueled by the oil of hope that would be the red lion or, even better, his comrades, or to be extinguished by the gloomy waves of reality that never gave up on catching up with him.

_Pathetic. Weak._

Oh how much he hated these words, how much he hated how well they fit his current self. How much he hated how they’d always fit him, the fifth wheel, the member who had never been good for anything besides piloting a lion, and not even more than mediocre at that. It was a mixture of hurting and numbing, each side fighting for superiority, and Lance let it, because there wasn’t much else that he could possibly do.

“Rise, paladin.”

He didn’t move, albeit unable to say if he didn’t want to or simply couldn’t. Were they honestly expecting him to make it back to his room in his current state? His legs were shaking, his sight was getting blurry—was he dropping unconscious, or going blind instead?

Something grabbed him by the neck, pulled him up and forced him to stand; it must have looked ridiculous, how he couldn’t keep himself upright, and he was internally fighting himself. Should he give up and fall back down, or stand upright in spite?

“I see you’re determined to keep playing the pacifist, no matter the damage. We can change that, though.”

A dark ball of supernatural energy came floating his way, stopping right before his eyes. Lance wanted to swap it away, but he was occupied with burying his nails into his bent knees so he wouldn’t double over. The orb glowed at him threateningly, small purple bolts of lightning dancing in it, and his heart sank at the sight.

“Last chance, paladin,” the druid continued, and he almost sounded pitiful—maybe he was, somehow, just not enough to actually spare his enemies. But Lance couldn’t reply anything, because he didn’t _have_ the required answers, and he didn’t bother explaining that for the tenth or twentieth time.

“Fine then.”

Instead of coming at him, the orb fell to the floor, tainting it black and engulfing the room around them in darkness. The sudden change made Lance so dizzy that he finally gave in and dropped back down to his knees, forced to watch both the commander and the druid leave, and unable to follow along, or even scream at them to let him go.

It was as if all light was being sucked out of the room around him, leaving it pitch-black, like an endless corridor of darkness. Lance couldn’t even tell if this was really happening, or if maybe it was all in his head; perhaps the druid had cast some sort of spell on him? Or, and that was the most frightening possibility: Maybe he was already going insane without any necessary outer influences.

“What’s going on?” he dared ask, but didn’t get any kind of answer. Would he be able to make it to the end of the room and find the door…? Even if it was engulfed in darkness, the walls should still be there somewhere.

But Lance was tied to the floor, at least so it seemed, willing his feet, his legs to move, but they refused. Was his body even still attached to himself? Was he, in any kind of way, still in control of his actions? He stared at his hands, shaking, blurry before his eyes, drops of blood tainting the dark suit he was wearing, and a wave of heat flooded him at how sick it made him feel. The urge to vomit rose in his throat, and he focused so much on holding it back that he lost his balance, dropped to his back and closed his eyes so he wouldn’t lose his consciousness, too.

This _had_ to be some sort of crazy magic—but for what purpose? Why did they still refuse to kill him, when it should be obvious that he would not be able to lead them to the red lion? Not that he would do it, even if he could.

“Lance?”

His eyes flew open, his heart hammering in his chest. This voice...it couldn’t be real. Of course it wasn’t real. He knew he was alone in here, cut off from the people he knew and loved, from safety, from home, but that didn’t stop the word from making him long like he couldn’t remember ever longing.

He wanted to run, he wanted to be saved _so badly_ , and it was impossible to bear. Anger or self-pity, either of the two was the reason for the hot tears daring to run down his cheeks. He wasn’t sure what he held them back for, since there was no one to see him cry, but he did either way. Maybe he wanted to prove to himself that he could overcome this, that he was strong enough.

“Lance!”

He wasn’t strong enough at all; he didn’t even know if the words were an illusion or a memory haunting him. He recalled hearing his name in that tone, but he couldn’t say when. It was panicked, high-pitched, so unlike the woman he knew and respected as strong and composed.

 _Allura_ _…_

All his thoughts blurred into one big mess, and he could barely keep himself awake. Where was the floor, where the ceiling? Was he lying on his back or diving down to hell head-first? It all seemed the same to him now, and the pressure on his chest made it hard to even just breathe.

 _Don_ _’t breathe then_ , the nasty voice inside his head suggested. _Give in. Give up._

Laughter. An eerie voice that he didn’t recognize.

_No one will miss me._

More laughter. A voice so familiar that it sent a shiver down his spine. It was deep, low, humiliating.

_Kei_ _—_

“No one will miss you, Lance.”

Was that real, too? It had to be. He’d always been the fifth wheel in the group, always the one without any outstanding abilities, without much of a reason to even be considered a paladin. It shouldn’t surprise him that no one came to his rescue, that he was doomed to live through a spiral of torture until he was granted the mercy of death.

He sat up—painfully, his whole body urging him to stop, ribs digging into his lungs, throat sore, vision blurry. It hurt, it hurt _so much_ , but he did it anyway, pushed himself to his feet, took deep, slow breaths, shook his head and willed the tears to stop. What good was he if he gave up so easily?

There was no one here with him, he noticed when he cast a look around the darkness. None of his teammates, no one saying his name or laughing at him or insulting him; he was all alone, and he’d been from the get-go.

“You won’t...break me this easily,” he promised into the nothingness, unaware if anyone could hear him, if anyone would even care enough to listen, if this was even _happening_ or if it was a way-too-real nightmare digging holes into his sanity like an aggressive acid.

“We’ll see about that, paladin,” he suddenly heard the druid’s voice, monotone and dull, and then the darkness faded as if it had never been there, the room around Lance reappearing so abruptly that the brightness of it knocked him over.

He wasn’t even sure what to blame for the unconsciousness overwhelming him.

* * *

 

The darkness shouldn’t be scary anymore, Lance found himself thinking one time, when he was lying in the pitch-black, unable to make out anything. He should be used to it by now, but for some reason, it was as horrible as ever, with every breath he took sounding like a foreign creature breathing in his ear, ready to tear him apart.

More often than not, he awoke from terrible nightmares. Sometimes he found himself being tortured again, sometimes he had to watch his friends go through the same procedure. Many, many times, they would call out for him, beg him to help, but he would be stuck in place, unable to do anything, physically and mentally restrained from reaching out and saving them.

It wasn’t much different from being awake, he started to realize. Sure, he hadn’t been entirely useless to the team, but he’d definitely caused them trouble more often than in any way necessary, and they would’ve been much stronger without him.

The dreams were horrible, torturing, but they were very, very far from the worst thing. The useless training sessions now commonly ended with him being engulfed by the same kind of darkness, where he could only see himself but nothing else—not the room around him or the people whose voices he heard. He still didn’t understand what it was good for, and he didn’t dare ask, knowing that he wouldn’t get an answer anyway.

At first, it had only been the voices. Allura’s and Keith’s mostly, and it made Lance feel sick. Was the druid digging in his mind and picking out which voice, whose terrible words would hurt him the most? Or was this just Lance going insane by himself, his mind making up things without any outer influence? He didn’t know, and it didn’t matter, because either outcome scared him equally.

And that was the worst part: He was, undoubtedly and undeniably, _utterly_ scared, and there was nothing he could do about it. Even when he had a gun and, with it, the means to defend himself at least for a while, it didn’t make him feel any safer. He was still trapped, stuck in a place so far away from everything he knew that at times, he found it hard to remember what his room felt like, or a proper bed or a much needed _shower_.

“You have to stay strong,” he told himself whenever he was on the brink of giving up. “You have to.”

And he believed it, for a while, at least until the silence consumed his clear thoughts and made him question that very thought.

 _Why_ , he asked himself. _Why can_ _’t I just give in for good?_

But no one answered, and things kept starting over and over again.


End file.
